But let us back to our ornithology. October 20th was a perfect day. There were snow-birds in the gardens and the old maiden-blush apple tree was in bloom. Nutty October and flowery May, each a delight, and here commingled! There should have been music, but every bird was mute, and the hyla piped his one note at long-drawn intervals. So undemonstrative in every way, so silent save the occasional faint twitterings, these birds of the summer-like afternoon might readily have been passed by unnoticed; but it will not be so later. They gather energy as the mercury falls, and when the next hoar-frost whitens the meadows and the uplands’ weedy fields, then will they shake tall grass and rattle the dry twigs as you approach. They are timid birds, and your shadow or that of a hawk creates a riot in their ranks; but they find their wits as soon as they lose them, and if you but stand quietly, orderly, seed-hunting is promptly resumed. What, then, is their peculiar merit, that attention should be asked to them? I am sure that I do not know, unless it be that I love them. This is merit enough in my eyes; and who that spent his youth in the country but recalls the birds of winter? It may be that there was too much work to be done at other times of the year to give heed to the summer songsters; but never in winter were the days too short to set a rabbit trap, to follow a covey of quails, or, less murderously inclined, to listen to the squirrel’s bark or the chirping of the sparrows in the hedge. Seldom, indeed, are the snow-birds alone. There are several other species of the same family (the finches) here in the same weedy pastures, and far oftener all are singing than that any are silent. Autumn, either early or late, is never a dismal season. As you wander in the woods or near them, you can not say— “I walk as one Who treads alone Some banquet hall deserted.” What Summer took away with her Autumn has replaced. There has been a shifting of scenes, but the actors are as numerous as before. The round of the seasons is a serio-comic drama with no heroes, or with every creature one, as you happen to view it. In midwinter, when the deep snows come—if they come at all—how effectually the snow-birds enliven what might otherwise be a dreary outlook! On the projecting twigs above the huge drifts they gather, and, plunging down deeply into the snow, find seeds on many a sturdy weed that winter winds have not cast down. Their curious antics at such a time, so vividly described by Lockwood, make us forget that the day is cold, and, whatever the weather, I would rather be among the birds and see them close at hand—closer than is ever possible from my study windows.